Video inside Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy’s TGL golf league SoFi Center
Inside the SoFi Center with three of the 24 PGA Tour pros who will make up the six teams and be televised on ESPN on January 7, 2025.
PALM BEACH GARDENS — Fitting the schedule for TGL’s inaugural season into the start of the PGA Tour season was a challenge.
The league, which includes 24 PGA Tour players, had to consider its players’ Tour schedule and travel — especially early in the season — before announcing the 15 matches that will be played at SoFi Center.
“That’s one thing that was talked about for a while is how to make this marry with the PGA Tour schedule,” Billy Horschel said. “The players had to talk about what events they were going to play, what events they weren’t going to play.
“So we worked hard trying to make a schedule work for everyone. Some may have it a little bit tougher.”
The tech-infused league created by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy debuts Tuesday at 9 p.m. when New York faces The Bay. Each team includes four PGA Tour players, with three active each match.
New York, whose entire team lives in the Jupiter area, will use Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele and Matt Fitzpatrick Tuesday. The Bay has activated Jupiter’s Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark and Ludvig Aberg.
Cameron Young (New York) and Min Woo Lee (Bay) are not playing in their teams’ first match.
“Anything you throw at us during any part of the season throws a wrench into things so it’s definitely an added layer schedule wise,” Young said. “But we’re going to make it work.”
With matches on Mondays and Tuesdays, TGL partnered with ONEflight International to provide private jet travel for players who need to quickly get to and from PGA Tour events.
Schauffele, Fitzpatrick, Clark and Aberg were in Hawaii over the weekend playing in the Sentry at Kapalua Resort. They flew together to Palm Beach County for Tuesday’s season-opening match.
“There’s going to be some potential conflicts just with it being that it’s starting throughout the West Coast Swing,” Fowler said. “I know on my schedule there’s maybe one week that might be, but other than that, I think they did a really good job of looking at everyone’s potential schedules.
“They’re working closely with our teams and the players to make sure that it’s not something that is going to take away from our normal prep or normal Tour life.”
TGL has list of top local PGA Tour players as alternates
TGL is prepared if a team’s roster is impacted by travel issues or injury. The league has a list of top local PGA Tour players who have joined as alternates and are ready to step in if a team needs a substitute. That list has not been revealed.
Following this week’s event in Honolulu, the next five weeks of Tour stops are in California and Arizona.
TGL’s season concludes while the Tour is on its Florida Swing. Of the 24 players in the TGL roster, 11 live in northern Palm Beach County.
“Most guys live here, in either Jupiter or parts of Florida, so it’s not that far,” said Wyndham, who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. “They did try to plan most of the schedule so it’s when we are playing in Florida, so it’s just an easy drive or flight.”
“But with that said, the nice thing is planes are fast and we’re used to traveling.”
TGL has not scheduled games the weeks of The Genesis Invitational and The Players Championship. And the season will conclude before the Masters.
Travel is one reason why McIlroy’s Boston Common Golf is not debuting until the fourth week of the season. McIlroy is defending his title at the Dubai Desert Classic, Jan. 16–19.
But when Boston plays its first match, Jan. 27, it will be against Woods’ Jupiter Links, the league’s founders going head-to-head.
Woods makes his TGL debut Jan. 14 in a match against Los Angeles.
Tom Kim is part of Woods’ team and spoke to the 15-time major champion about how he handled different challenges, including scheduling, during his career.
“That was a big thing for him becoming the best player in the world despite those situations.” Kim said. “Kind of adjusting and proving that besides going through all that, being able to go out and still win, it gave him that edge.
“I’ll try to use that mentality to try to use everything to my advantage.”
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
